Unlearn, Rewild: Earth Skills, Ideas and Inspiration for the Future Primitive

by Miles Olson

Picture a world where humans exist, like all other living things, in balance. Where there is no separation between "human" and "wild." Unlearn, Rewild boldly envisions such a world, probing deeply into the cultural constraints on our ability to lead truly sustainable lives and offering real, tangible tools to move toward another way of living, seeing, and thinking.

Part philosophical treatise, part hard-core survival guide, this unique and thoroughly unconventional manual blends philosophy with a detailed introduction to a rich assortment of endangered traditional living skills,

Harvesting and preparing unconventional proteinsFeral food preservationDealing responsibly with wasteNatural methods of birth controlTanning and processing animal skinsLyrical, humorous, surprising, enlightening, and thought-provoking by turns, Unlearn, Rewild is essential reading for those who wish to heal themselves and the earth, live gracefully into the future primitive and experience their wildest dreams.

Genres: Nonfiction, Gardening, Nature, Philosophy, Society, Spirituality, Ecology

244 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 11, 2012

Reviews

[Unigami · Rating 1 out of 5]

On page 71 the author wrote: "The Japanese news anchor who ate produce from the Fukushima region on television to prove it was safe has died from cancer"

Holy crap, I thought...I didn't know that! I guess I haven't been following the events subsequent to the disaster very closely over the last couple years....it must be getting really bad over there.

I decided to check it out on the internet to find out what is going on.

Turns out that the news anchor is NOT dead. Okay, yes - he does have leukemia and had to retire from TV, but I can't find any credible facts anywhere to support the claim that he ate produce on TV and contracted cancer because of it.
He is an old man and many people of this age get leukemia.

Up until that point I was enjoying the book, but this destroyed the authors credibility in my mind and ruined the rest of it for me...what other errors and/or exaggerations are in there?

[Sarah Taylor-Barkley · Rating 2 out of 5]

As much as Olson gives credit to indigenous cultures and tries to disassociate himself from his whiteness, he still comes across as a privileged white dude who thinks he knows more than everyone else. Could have done without the first part "ideas" or whatever, which doesn't cite many sources therefore making some of his claims dubious, but there's some insight to be had in the second "skills" section in the book.

[Richard Reese · Rating 4 out of 5]

Are you glowing with inner peace? Is your journey healthy, balanced, and joyful? Do you believe that the world is close to perfection because of technological progress? None of the above?

Miles Olson is a young man with an old soul. He has never felt at home in modern society, even in childhood. The only people who made sense to him were the Native Americans, because they lived with respect and reverence for all things. When he was 17, he spent the summer living alone on a remote island. Solitude in wildness is powerful medicine. In a week or so, he could barely remember his name.

He struggled to find his life’s vision and calling. There was no integrity in pursuing a career that injured the family of life. There was no integrity in eating food produced in an atrocious manner. There was no integrity in devoting his life to robotic consumption. The “normal” mode was wacko.

The proper way to live in industrial civilization was to plug into the system, obey the rules, and never ask questions. But this was not a path with integrity, and Olson refused to submit to a dishonorable life. So, he commenced thinking. If the system was destroying the future, then the system was insane. If the system was insane, then so were its rules. Therefore, the virtuous choice was to disregard the rules, listen to his heart, and purse a life of integrity, by any means necessary. He did just that.

He’s been squatting for almost a decade on the fringe of a large unnamed city in British Columbia. He hunts, traps, forages, and gardens. He gets profound satisfaction from reducing his dependence on the machine, and reducing the harm he causes. He wrote Unlearn, Rewild to describe his life as an outlaw with high principles. (Well, he’s an outlaw to the system, but consumers are outlaws to nature, and nature bats last.)

Unlearning is a process of throwing civilized illusions overboard, of cleaning our minds. Rewilding means “to return to a more natural or wild state; the process of undoing domestication” — to become uncivilized, to reconnect to place. The bottom line is that “without genuine, raw connection to wild nature we, as creatures, go insane.”

All of us have hunter-gatherer genes. When we were born, our souls expected to spend life as wild and free creatures in a sacred world. What went wrong? Olson sees domestication, agriculture, and civilization as being catastrophic mistakes in our journey.

“Sustainability” has become a meaningless word, hijacked and disemboweled by greedheads, nutters, universities, and shameless marketing hucksters. Nothing is unsustainable anymore. Our world is totally awesome. We just need to burn a bit less fossil fuel, make a few minor tweaks, and our way of life will become utopia. Olson disagrees. He’s become a revivalist who preaches a fiery message about “radical sustainability” — good old-fashioned fundamentalist sustainability, the genuine article, the most important word in our language today.

One of his sermons illuminated the grave misconceptions that torment vegans and vegetarians, and lead them down a dark path into the valley of malnutrition, impaired health, and prickly self-righteousness. He was once a vegan, until he saw the light, and returned to the normal omnivorous diet that everyone’s ancestors had enjoyed for a million years.

Yes, of course industrial meat production was abominable, cruel, and ecologically foolish. The dim-witted domesticated livestock and poultry certainly suffer for it. But why does no one grieve for the thousands of wild creatures murdered by every pass of the plow and combine? Why do we ignore the blood gushing from our tofu stir fry? “There are precious few humans that hear the screams of the Earth….”

Olson recommended that we stop feeding grain to animals, and use it to feed hungry folks. But this would require continued soil mining to produce the grain. Instead, in the spirit of big dreaming, I would suggest that we cease growing grain for animal feed, and convert that cropland back to grassland, restore the soil to good health, and give it back to the indigenous wild life — let it heal.

He wondered if hunting with firearms was ethical. How much technology is too much? When the Cree replaced bows with guns, they killed more caribou. But “…the ones truly being victimized by this technology were not the caribou. The caribou were still free, the people had entered a trap.” This chapter began with a Ran Prieur quote: “Every technology begins as a key and ends as a cage.” Well said.

Obviously, the turd in the swimming pool is the way we think — our insane culture. If our civilization burned to the ground today, we’d start rebuilding it at dawn tomorrow. “If humans had clean minds, like grasses and thistles, we would return to a state of balance when the forces of domestication ceased.”

It is at this point that the two sacred verbs “unlearn” and “rewild” summon immense power. Are we capable of firing up our brains and envisioning humankind living in balance with the rest of life? Yes, if we try. Are we capable of escaping from our cage? Yes, with patience and determination. Is it possible that sanity is contagious? Let’s find out! Olson concludes that we would be wise to make some effort to evolve. It will take generations to create cultures that win the Radical Sustainability seal of approval, but all we have to lose is an insane way of life.

The book has two parts: ideas and endangered skills. The ideas section describes his philosophy of life. The skills section is a sampler of essential knowledge for squatters: making traps and snares, skinning and gutting game, medicinal plants, food preservation, sex without pregnancy, tips for cooking earthworms, slugs, and maggots, and so on.

I learned some new tricks here, but this is not the last book you’ll need to read. Chestnuts are good food, but horse chestnuts are toxic. How do you tell the difference? Camas is good food, but death camas, which looks the same at harvest time, is not mentioned. Why is it called death camas?

Olson doesn’t write like a dusty scholar surrounded by piles of musty books. He writes like a cheerful outlaw who has created a rewarding career in harvesting roadkill, foraging for nuts, roasting grasshoppers, and feasting on dandelions. It’s a loose and feisty tome with strong opinions and a strong sense of hope and enthusiasm. It’s not flawless and polished — it has some squeaks, leaks, and rattles — but it still works.

Olson has not given us “The Solution” here. Obviously, this week is an inconvenient time for seven-point-something billion to become squatters. But the rising cost and scarcity of energy may turn us all into squatters before long, ready or not. Nevertheless, he is fully engaged in the most important work of our era — finding the path to genuine sustainability. Truly, every week is a perfect opportunity for unlearning, rewilding, thinking, and living with greater integrity.

[Ruby]

I'm not surprised that this book has a tonne of one star AND five star ratings. Miles is nothing if not controversial. His views are rather extreme; he believes our only hope for a sustainable society is to turn our backs on large-scale agriculture and to become gardeners/hunters/gatherers. He talks of survival skills like eating rodents, animal eyes, tanning leather with brains, the nutritional value of maggots... All pretty confronting stuff.

He also critiques the notion that veganism provides a sustainable lifestyle AND that it is a cruelty-free diet. His arguments are sure to ruffle a few feathers.

Do I agree with Miles? Honestly, it's complicated. I agree with him that a radical overhaul is necessary if we humans are to continue living on this planet without killing it. I agree with him that Armageddon is already happening for many endangered/extinct species. I agree that we need to look at our dreadful, toxic way of living as a matter of urgency. Do I agree that only hunter-gatherer societies are sustainable? I'm not sure. I do have some faith in science. I suspect new styles of architecture and agriculture might provide a more feasible solution than trying to support 8 billion people through hunting and foraging.

I'm not gong to write him off because I think it is good to keep an open mind, but I am not convinced, either. Life is complicated. Especially the business of feeding and sheltering 8 billion humans without destroying the planet. It's food for thought, though. Definitely.

[Libby · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Unlearn, Rewild: Earth Skills, Ideas and Inspiration for the Fugure Primitive,' is a great book by Miles Olson filled with the ideas and philosophy that we need to take care of Mother Earth, and the practical skills to get one started on the path. To really make it as a primitive initiate would take more research and study, but much of that would be better off subsumed under a practical launching pad of experience, and this book seems like the perfect place for that beginning. Olson states, "if philosophy doesn't translate into action, it is useless," and with that I wholeheartedly agree. In an interview on youtube with Suzanne Lindgren, assistant editor of Utne Reader, Olson describes his journey as beginning at age 17 when he ended up living in the woods by himself for a few months. He describes his experience as an initiation or rite of passage in which the venner of culture and societal mores were exchanged for an experience of reality. This experience, he further describes, as being beyond human understanding. Reminds me of the experience of Cheryl Strayed in the movie, 'Wild.' I haven't gotten to read her book yet, but look forward to doing so soon. Others of long wilderness trek expeiences have described the almost spiritual experience of being alone in the woods, and what Olsen is saying reminds me of this.

"It takes for granted that humans want to live meaningful lives, that we want to live with integrity and that we don't want to kill the planet," Olsen writes of his book. "That for the human animal to be sane, we need to have deep connections to the Earth." If you are concerned about your planet or your own need for connection and resilience, Olsen's writing will touch a deep chord within you. He speaks eloquently about the sustainable movement and argues for something much more fulfilling than just sustainability. He states in his introduction, "to assume that the system is going to crumble, that any day now the forces threatening life on Earth will grind to a halt and stop leaving us free to live a more simple life, is not strategically wise." His book is filled with ways to cope with making the transition to a different way of being in the world.

In one part of his book, he proposes that in building communities, people can find their niche of what they love doing and what is needed by the community. This makes me think of my husband, who is not the best hunter. He's 62 now, and disabled. But friends of his who knew that he would use deer meat, would bring deer they had killed to him. He was a meat butcher as a young man. This was a skill that he put to good use and often whoever brought the deer received some tasty homemade jerky in return. Olsen's book made me think of many other ways a deer carcass might be used. What have they been doing with the deer skins? They've just been discarded.

Olsen writes, "we have evolved to live meaningful lives, in communities with young and old, harvesting food to eat and share, killing plants and animals to live, watching elders die, building our own homes, keeping them warm, learning the stories of the mountains and rivers and ancestors." I'm lucky enough to be attached to the land through experiences with my parents and grandparents, and stories they've told. I live in a valley in Wilkes County, North Carolina on property that has been handed down for at least four generations, and I love the stories that are connected to this valley, as well as the experiences I have had here since birth. I was conceived along the spine of Sly Mountain, which stands behind my home. Yet, even having this great treasure, I have been very conditioned by the society in which I live and I've ended up measuring success and failure through the lens of that conditioning. Olsen's truths have been a part of me for some years since I've come to understand what we as a human species are doing to our planet. But I have put action to these truths in half measure, largely because of societal conditioning. Even with that half measure, I have found a rich connection to the Earth in gardening and bringing healthy food to the table that is shared with family. Olsen's book guides me into a knowing of how much more needs to be done.

Although I am familiar with many of the concepts in Olsen's Part I ideas, he presents them in lively ways I've not yet considered. The chapter on succession was full of ideas I had not thought about. For example, "if an area of land that has been devastated by human activity or natural disaster is simply left alone, it will heal. But to really get to the point, this is the big question: What about humans?" The reader will find Olsen's ideas on this and much more enlightening as well as inspirational.

In part II endangered skills, Olsen presents chapters on learning how to live, fire and light, working with skin, and much more. There's a whole chapter on bugs as food. I'm a bit squeamish on that, but I'm sure necessity could create a delicious meal of grasshopers. Yuck. I read the entire chapter, but I will leave that one to necessity. There's a lot of good, practical teaching in the skills chapters. I have neighbors who hunt and kill bears, so I found the information about bear fat to be quite interesting, especially the fact that it could be used for candles.

I am deeply grateful to the author for writing with such skill and integrity on subjects that are of the utmost concern. The information is timely and much needed.

[Vivian Carroll · Rating 2 out of 5]

Olson provides a lot of interesting information about working and understanding the environment we work in. Unfortunately, the way it is written is very unattractive and to me felt like an angsty teenager complaining about how awful the Western world is. I found that his arguments and facts were easily debatable and some were actually fake. Credibility is real and necessary; having a disclaimer at the beginning would have set up the book for success. I find it disheartening that he explains and discusses some very important ideas about how civilization was founded and why we should think critically about the industrial complex we live in today, yet his judgmental tone and jumping-to-conclusions ideas are going to sway people from every wanting to read further about primitive skills and environmental studies. I would recommend coming into this book from the approach of "this is just one mans idea about how to live in the world".

[Rachel Archelaus · Rating 3 out of 5]

I honestly kept wanting to love this book. The trouble is that it's so pessimistic! It's so judgmental. I completely admire the author and am fascinated by his experience living wildly, but it was hard to read it straight through due to the depressive nature of the writing.

[Pam Dawling · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not a new book, but I was drawn by the title, as rewilding is a word I’ve been hearing lately. I thought I would learn about growing diversified hedgerows, and including areas of native wild plants to attract beneficial insects and predators. Instead, this book combines philosophy, politics, and ethics with some survival skills. If you seek answers to questions around what “sustainability” really means, and what it is you want to sustain, then this book can provide some pointers. Skills such as foraging, trapping, and using what you have are included.
The author, Miles Olson, was part of a small community of feral homesteaders for ten years, ten years ago on Vancouver Island. While I enjoyed some of the essays in this book, I was disappointed to find so little about growing food, which is my own passion in life. The author sees all agriculture as intrinsically problematic. The food part of the book is very meat-focused. I believe a mostly vegetarian diet supplemented with meat is the more sustainable way to go.
I agree with the author that skills are pointless if not grounded in a cohesive context. Why tan hides? It’s not helpful to the planet to tan hides on Saturdays and water-ski all week. We cannot relax into philosophizing without making practical contributions.
Olson questions the word “sustainable”, which is the first word in the title of my book, Sustainable Market Farming. Currently the favored word for planet-inclusive agriculture is regenerative. I’m sure this word will also get greenwashed, as organic and ecological have already. We need to consider what we actually mean by the words we use. What is it we want to sustain? Destroying the rainforest to grow soybeans for animal and vegetarian food is not sustainable. Monocultures of any sort destroy diversity. Destroying peat bogs to plant trees (as carbon offsets for other unsustainable practices) is not sustainable. Destroying good agricultural land to make conifer plantations so that jet-setters can continue jetting about is not sustainable. The global population needs to be fed. And so will the people of the next century.
“To “rewild” is to return to a more natural or wild state; the process of undoing domestication. Synonyms: undomesticated, uncivilized.” This is where Miles Olson starts to set out his anti-farming table. Farm animals are dominated and controlled by farmers, with their wild spirits extinguished. Humans are also domesticated animals. Hence the need for us to unlearn some domestication. Cast off assumptions that you need to earn your keep, for instance. I found his analysis unsatisfactory. He throws all aspects of the modern world that he does not agree with, into the barrel of “civilization”, while keeping back ones he likes such as practical skills, intelligence, books, science.
While I found some of his thinking valuable, I did not like his gloominess, or the certainty that he professes. “Every day the world is ending. . . Our lifetimes, if we are not sedated, are going to be filled with loss and struggle. . .” He does continue with “. . . when we embrace that, we can move through it with more strength and determination.” But let’s also remember joy, humor, kindness.
In reading other reviews, I found that others say some of his facts are untrue. So, reader beware. Do not throw your critical thinking to the winds. “The back-to-the-land communities. . . a movement that was solid and strong in urban centers scattered into the countryside and gently faded away into dysfunctional utopian communities.” Now, that I know is not true! I live in a large community started in 1967. I’ve lived there 30 years. We’re not dysfunctional! We’re running our own businesses, producing quite a bit of our own food, raising around a dozen children at a time. Yes, I feel defensive!
He claims to be descended from nomadic reindeer hunter-herders in Scandinavia and acorn-gathering fisher people in the British Isles. I had not heard of Ancient Brits eating acorns. British acorns are considerably smaller than American acorns, and hazelnuts are tastier. This site: Old European Culture, says the writer has found no archa¬eological data on acorn consumption in the British Isles. https://oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.c....
When he was 17, Miles benefited from spending several summer months, living alone in a cabin in the woods on a small island in British Columbia. He was fortunate that it was not winter, or somewhere with a less benign climate, or the streets of Chicago. He was fortunate to be a physically healthy young white man. He grew a garden, foraged, trapped, and hunted. The solitude was life-changing for him. As he says “Everyone has different wounds to heal from, everyone has different ways of healing.”
In order to stop killing the planet, we need to realize that our own survival depends on the health of our land, with an understanding of our place on that land. Are tools neutral? “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” A part of the truth. People with guns kill more people than people without guns. We have to reduce the risk of gun deaths by making more gradual changes, and working on a plan towards our goal. Which technologies are ethical, appropriate, and which ones are inherently destructive? Good questions from the author.
I agree that technology can provide power and efficiency, while it can also take away understanding and connection. The internet allows us unprecedented ways to connect with others. But these are inferior to real-life connections, as we have become acutely aware during the Covid pandemic. It gives us access to massive troves of information, while seemingly destroying our ability to remember what we’ve read and sometimes even think for ourselves.
Is it “common knowledge” that hunter-gatherer societies do not destroy their land bases? Many societies have collapsed. Possibly some groups out-hunted or out-gathered what their environment could continue providing? Several pages bemoan the terrible things that white people did when arriving in North America. I doubt his claim that the immigrants did not appreciate that they had found something beautiful, a better way of life. Or that they (all?) “worked as fast as possible to degrade what was here.” As Jared Diamond says in Collapse, no one decides to cut down the last tree, but rather people cut smaller and smaller trees until the weather takes what saplings remain and no more seedlings can appear.
I appreciate that Miles includes an essay “On Being White”. How does the blond, blue-eyed white male reconcile himself to his lineage of colonizers? He doesn’t accept that his destiny is to be an oppressor. The Earth didn’t produce the white male oppressor, the white male oppressor did. “When our goals, views and perception fall in line with the plans of those in power, we have been fully colonized.” We cannot ignore the privileges that come with our ancestry. Olson says that we should use these privileges to navigate our way towards a society that is completely intolerant of racism, empire and genocide.
The next hot topic is about diet – is veganism or radical sustainability best? Olson is an ex-vegan. He no longer believes veganism is good for humans or the planet. We have no evidence of a traditional society that sustained itself by being vegan. The very valid concerns and passions that drive vegans also drive the author. But their conclusions are different. Olson’s concept of radical sustainability includes nourishing and maintaining the planet. Traditional sustainable cultures are mostly omnivorous and they don’t farm. They hunt, fish, trap and forage. They don’t eat burgers from factory-farmed animals.
Veganism does not address domestication, over-population and the reduction of wild land. On the contrary it seems more urban, more detached from the roots of finding our own food. Veganism is efficient (cut out the cattle and eat the grain ourselves!). But hunter-gatherers worked fewer hours than farmers. Nowadays we cannot all become hunter-gatherers. Population density is too high where most of us live. Biologically, we are omnivores. Herbivorous animals have multi-chambered stomachs, regurgitate and chew the cud, and lack incisors. We are not like that. Cultures that eat mostly raw foods eat mostly meat. Those that eat mainly plants, mostly cook them (or ferment them). 92% of long-term vegans, 67% of vegetarians and 5% of meat-eaters suffer from B12 deficiency (WebMD). A place-based (locavore) diet involves us in noticing and supporting what foods can be produced on the land we live on. It can teach us humility and respect.
The next essay is about the succession of plant types that colonize bare soil. Invasive plants are not a cause of destruction but a first response of the environment. Scotch broom may be followed by Himalayan blackberries, then red alder and finally the climax species of hemlock and cedar. There is no point in pulling the Scotch broom, it’s only there temporarily anyway.
Following the essays is the section on endangered practical skills. It’s a motley collection, including how to truly determine if dead animals are safe to eat. (Lots of myth-busting.) Roadkill can be a source of meat, and here you can learn how to tell how fresh the meat is. Look at the eyes, pull the hair, bend the joints, look at the size of the maggots. I’m confidant not everyone will want to use this information. I’m not squeamish about food expiry dates. I like to have facts, rather than myths. I do hope he checked his facts. . . Once again we see that the focus of this book really is on meat.
Olson says that in 2012 Africa, at least one group of Pygmy people will kill an elephant and camp around it, feasting and drying some meat for later, until it was all used. No freezers or refrigerators in sight. It is easier to imagine Inuit caribou hunters keeping meat cached for a year or more, because of the cold.
Next comes a chapter on feral food preservation. Traditionally, before refrigeration, there were three main methods of food preservation: drying, cellaring and fermentation. Secondary methods include salting, smoking and packing in various liquids or finely divided solids like ashes and sand. At last! Vegetables and fruit! Anything that can be dried in a dehydrator can be dried by sun and air, indoors or out. I was especially intrigued by the recipe for Gundru, or Gundruk, one of the national foods of Nepal. Pickled greens, without any salt. Crush the leaves, preserving the juices, and pack tightly in a jar, tamping down the layers. Don’t let any juice escape. Put a lid on. Leave the jar on a tray or plate in a warm place for 1-3 weeks. When ready it will smell tangy and tasty. If not, don’t eat it (yet). It can be eaten fresh, or can be dried, but should be used within a few weeks of opening.
There are interesting ideas such as storing apples in water (perhaps the origin of bobbing for apples), then it’s back to the meat. Olson explains the butterfly cut, a way to slice meat into long thin strips for drying, and discusses the hazards of smoking (carcinogenic creosote). He explains how to eat various less-likely parts of animals, and also the difference between the fat of herbivores and that of omnivores and carnivores, and explains how to render fat and store it. Next he gives directions for making pemmican, a staple food of Plains Native Americans. It is a mixture of powdered dried red meat with rendered fat, rolled into balls. The author has personally lived off pemmican as a staple for several months. If dried berries, seaweed or other dried plants are included, it is a complete food.
The next chapter brings in some plants as medicine. The author wisely encourages us to learn a few basic useful plants first, and really understand those, rather than overwhelm ourselves with hundreds of local medicinal plants. His list includes comfrey and yarrow for wounds; yarrow for influenza; Queen Anne’s Lace seed (beware of poisonous look-alikes) as a natural morning-after contraception; plantain for coughs, small injuries, stings and bites; high tannin plants for burns; goldenseal, Oregon grape and barberry against bacteria, viruses, fungi and other infections. I’m not advocating any of these, read up and make your own decisions.
Feral food cultivation is next, managing wild food plant sources to encourage more of what we want – pruning berry patches, weeding and tending camas plots. What appeared to incomers to be completely wild forests were sometimes forest gardens carefully tended by the native people. Clearing land to grow or raise culturally approved foods (domestication) puts us at war with what the land is naturally producing. Do you have a deer problem or a venison abundance? Miles favors learning how to support the land to feed us in sustainable, elegant and effective ways. This can include weeding, pruning and controlled burns.
The author advocates for trapping rather than hunting, as a means of efficiently and effectively obtaining meat (and skins), leaving lots of time in the day for other activities. (I almost wrote “other pursuits”, then realized that sounds like hunting!) This does require understanding the habits of our prey, and might require changing our outlook from being brave, sporty, manly, to being most effective. So “Hunter-Gatherer” might become “Trapper-Gatherer”. And with the considerations about managing the forests, “Trapper-Gardener” or “Gardener-Trapper” when you consider the relative proportions of each type of food.
The book includes details on traps for various animals, and tips on becoming a successful trapper. Coppicing of trees (cutting them down to a stump that can resprout) is a sustainable forestry method that provides poles. There is information on catching mice and how to eat them (cooked!) without contracting hantavirus. I hope never to need to eat mice, but I guess in a survival situation, I could do it. I just hope to be better prepared and not need that information!
The trapping chapter is naturally followed by information on skinning and gutting animals of various sizes, and later comes tanning. Sandwiched curiously in between those chapters is one on birth control in the boonies, for those that need it.
There is a chapter on gathering and curing nuts. Beat the squirrels to the harvest of still-green hazelnuts, and ripen them in a warm, dry rodent-proof place. (Black?) walnuts, apparently, are best soaked to remove the anti-nutrients. Acorns take a lot of attention: drying, shelling, toasting, removing the skins, grinding, leaching and then drying or immediate cooking as mush. I hope I never get that desperate. It’s a lot of work for the food they provide. Chestnuts we hope will make a comeback, thanks to hybridization. Horse-chestnuts (buckeyes) are toxic unless roasted, peeled, ground and leached for several weeks in a stream. Like acorns but bigger. What’s left is almost pure starch. Harvesting the squirrels first might be the way to harvest nuts.
Then we get to bugs, typically eaten whole, or with just the tickly legs and wings removed. Apparently there are over 1,700 known edible species in the world. Mind you, the earth is running out of bugs, and it takes a lot to make a meal, so I do question the sustainability of entomophagy (consuming arthropods as food). We need to hold back on killing everything that eats what we want to eat.
To close out the book there’s information on making fat lamps in the wild, using oils or fats from animal and plant sources. And finally there’s ideas on using human excretions safely and productively. The author’s conclusion is that we need to deal with our problems as they arise, to stop things becoming so miserable we cannot cope. We need to honestly evaluate ways of living sustainably, whether those ideas come from the past or the future. The “future primitive”

[Buck Wilde · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enterprising young hobo details the finer points of conservation as defined by squatting in an abandoned building on the outskirts of a major city and supplementing what the dumpsters are giving with fresh roadkill, grubs, and homemade pickles.

Miles Olson propounds a gentler, more on-the-grid version of off-the-grid anarchoprimitivism where you eke out your living by eating dead things you find, or kill, along with whatever you can steal from the most-despised hubs of civilization or grow in "your" yard because you can't, like, own land, man.

It was interesting, but more as a case study than a real philosophy. It could work for one dude, or maybe one dude and a few of his crustpunk friends, but for a book preaching sustainability, it's not terribly sustainable. Fortunately, it doesn't have to be.

The Unlearn, Rewild could be universalized with the proviso that we are rocketing toward the primitive future of the Future Primitive. Everyone can grow lettuce in vacant lots and eat out of the garbage until society crumbled entirely, at which point we would be able to use some of those wildling skills to survive in "the hands of the gods" to borrow a phrase from the dude who wrote the Monke novel, and abandon the rest of them since they'd no longer apply. For the purpose of hastening the collapse of this busted-ass civilization experiment, these work just fine, and leave you better off in the post-war (face it, it'll be a war) wasteland than you would have been watching Netflix until the curtain fell.

Three stars. I'll make pickles, but I'm not eating skunk that got hit by a car. Not yet.

[J Library · Rating 1 out of 5]

I thought it would be something like Edward Abbey and John Muir meets Euell Gibbons plus survival skills.

I was sorely disappointed.

It was a human hating dystopian self-aggrandizing pity party with mediocre survivalist tips.

The book was filled with pseudo-intellectual moralizing based in bad history, piss-poor anthropology, and even worse science. Plus, there were so many "facts" that were just plain wrong, I'd need to write my own book to refute them. And I have better things to do.

There are easily several dozen books that cover survival skills with greater breadth, depth, and thoughtfulness. And there are at least as many books that manage to treat the human-Nature relationship with decent science and history.

The book was terrible. If I didn't consider it blasphemy to dispose of a book in good condition, I'd recycle the darn thing or use it as tinder in a campfire.

[Tracy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading his short essays (especially the one on veganism,as its something i struggle with myself). I was pleased that he included an essay on privilege (white privilege in particular). His analysis in general was interesting but stopped short of offering everyday solutions, which is fine because it was enough to make you think.

[Abigail · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Very straightforward presentation of the author's worldview, made compelling by the fact that he is living in accordance with his principles. I appreciated the division of the book into Parts 1 and 2, with the latter being a very practical and accessible introduction to basic skills—from how to make pemmican to drying different nut types. Thoughtful discussion of how all of us have been conditioned (or as the author puts it, 'domesticated') in some way to live in an industrial civilization different from the types of community we evolved to be part of, leaving us in isolated and shallow lives. I appreciated the distinction between aversion to industrial society and our need for community—that humans are social creatures not meant to live in solitude, but that times of intentional solitude can be 'a method of cleansing so that you can come back to your community stronger, saner, and wiser, to share your gifts more fully.' (And that everyone doesn't have to learn everything to break reliance on dominant society; that's what community is for.) Also well done was the author's discussion of his race (white) in the context of historic and ongoing colonization, the injustice that comes with his privilege, and his active decision to unlearn and not perpetuate oppression and systemic racism. Without this discussion, I would have been very wary of exploring other tenets of Part 1 about agriculture, squatting, technology, etc. I am curious how the Author is now, a decade later and what else he may have learned.

Favorite quotes: 'While industrial society has the collective momentum of nearly seven billion humans, wild aliveness has the collective momentum of everything else in the universe. Tap into that.'

'If we want to truly step out of the cycle of domestication and destruction, we are going to have to become mature, aware, I might even say enlightened creatures. Like salmon.'"

[Kent Van Hoeven · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fantastic book. I bought it shortly after it came out and just picked it up again recently, I was pleasantly surprised how much more the book spoke to me now. Suggestions in this book will be jarring to most, and most will label these suggestions as too extreme to attempt. The funny thing is that these ideas are actually not extreme at all and have been done by humans for a very long time here on Earth, which the author mentions. We grew up with canned Spagettios and boxed Lucky Charms.

I was encouraged to write this review to combat in some way all the bad reviews (I have read your bad reviews). Most want to claim this book is too negative, come on people, this book is based on a realistic view of human existence from one who wants to live in tune w/ nature. It is easy (and necessary) to have a poor valuation of society and culture as it stands now. Otherwise why would you attempt to live differently? If you are reading this book and think things are just fine and dandy, it's true you aren't going to like this book. The Earth is in a bad state of affairs and humans are the cause, time to put 2 and 2 together.

The breadth of information covered in this book and the obscurity of some of the information shared is well worth the buy. It truly is both philosophical, practical, while also being personal (and Miles Olson speaks from experience when talking about how to live in tune w/ nature). Some subjects covered (in no particular order): Green Anarchy, foraging, hunting, trapping, guerrilla gardening, pruning, coppicing, Buddhism, food preservation (drying, fermenting, etc.), scavenging roadkill, pollution, capitalism, veganism, sex, herbalism, race, squatting, psychology, sociology, guns, domestication, and native people.

"Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine." -Thoreau

[Chrissy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book starts strong w a unique pov about our wildness that will stick with me. It starts to meander into a fittingly “wild” organization of thoughts. The author seems very out of touch w reality and unable to give useful tips that the rest of us living in society could use. But I definitely learned a lot. Book could of used some editing to bring together a more cohesive plan and ideas for the future instead of being mostly complaints.

[Brittany Herriot · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few great and handy tips and tricks. But also some misinformation - the editors should have done a better job at catching those small things. I appreciate his zest for returning to a more sustainable harmonious way of living like many foraging/Normadic indigenous peoples - I would read Daniel Quinn’s trilogy for a more educated and better written take on this.

[Marin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had lots of useful knowledge and tips and I love the general concept but this book feels very un-researched and a little conspiracy theorists. Was very disappointed by the whole chapter about to pros of using the pull out method.

[yenni m · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting thoughts on veganism. It's not so simple, I get that. I respect him for trying to live his life in line with his values. Do I agree with him much of that? No. Would I want to meet him? Not that kind of guy, no, but be well, I bet he can assort a macho tribe pretty easily.

[Kip · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted to read this considering the skills portion. I enjoyed daydreaming about the chapter on tanning hides / working with skin, as well as the one on bugs. Decent read.

[Sheena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thought provoking and a surprisingly easy read.

[Amber]

DNF. This book just did not sit right with me, didn't feel right, so couldn't get into it.

[Holly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book certainly made me think, and I discussed a few of the topics with others likeminded individuals. Some of the concepts are not very community or family focused (squatting for example). I appreciate what the author was trying to say and found his explanation about gutting a deer super useful and explained well and other concepts that are usually referred to but not explained.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Basically spark notes for Derrick Jensen and John Zerzan's stuff followed by wilderness survival skills that are usually missing from other books in that category. I was expecting this one to be a little more of a personal story about his attempts at becoming sort of a modern hunter gatherer when I first decided to read it, and there is some of that, but it's actually more of a how to thing. I definitely like it though.

[Zach · Rating 3 out of 5]

Purposeful and from a man who "walks the walk" I found the book to a bit short from what it could have accomplished. There were definite nuggets of info but he probably could have done more or chose a different book style. Easy to get through quickly but leaves you wanting some much more. A testament to the loads of knowledge and, more importantly, experiance Miles Olson has with the subjects.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Parts of this book are really out there, but other parts are inspiring in a My-Side-of-the-Mountain kind of way. Makes me want to go trap some squirrels....

Read highlights on my blog.

[Joshua]

This is a dangerous book...if you read it, you might be convinced that the author is correct. I certainly looked at squirrels hungrily for a a few weeks after reading it, and when Hurricane Irene came, I didn't worry about the lights going out...

[Miro · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a wonderful read full of adventures, misadventures, humour and reflections on what it means to live in harmony with nature and really just to live.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I finished this book very quickly. It was extremely readable. I found more enjoyment in the first half than the second, although the latter taught me some interesting things.